by Vivian Gray
“What? What about you?” I whisper back. “He’s going to kill you!”
“Don’t worry about me. Get yourself to the fields. Run as fast as you can and hide. I’ve got more weapons in this house. I can hold him off. Just run!”
“Tyler,” I shriek, not able to control the tears streaming down my face.
“RUN, BLANCHE!” He shouts at me.
His arm reaches behind me and opens the back door. The cold wind rustles up against the back of my thin tank top and silk pajama bottoms. His shoulder pushes me back, so I fall back, first out the door and over the one step. Tyler disappears, and I crawl aimlessly backward, wanting to watch the action. The men shout at one another.
Bangs, pops, crashes.
The whole house rattles and shakes with their fight. And then, silence. There’s no Tyler. There’s no Diesel. It’s quiet.
Every part of my body tenses as I continue to crawl back to the start of the cornfield. My heart beats thick in my ears, a rhythm my feet try to keep up with. I manage to stand up and run. Despite being barefoot, I sprint on the dry, rough ground. My feet kick up dust and grime, and I’m only half aware I’m leaving a track. I dash in and out of the fields, pushing through the strong stalks that refuse to budge no matter how hard I push.
I know I’m somewhere in the middle of the field, and by the position of the moon, I’ve got to be facing east. Besides that, I am totally and completely lost in this maze. Minutes pass – maybe even hours. I try to count my breathes as a way of measuring time, but the silence is deafening. I listen for any sign that Tyler is coming, that I’m about to be saved. But there is nothing but darkness and the leaves and crops rustling against one another in the breeze.
That is until I hear him call out to me.
“Blanche! Where are you? BLANCHE!”
I take off running. Diesel! God! How could he have done it? How could he have killed Tyler? After everything we have been through and the blood that connects us, how could he have murdered my own brother? The grief overcomes me as I realize how loud my wails are. I struggle to breathe as I desperately claw at each trail and pass-through. But every time I move, the sound of Diesel storming through the rows of corn only grows closer.
“Blanche! Please!”
My hands shake as I realize the only choice I have is to use what Tyler gave me. I hold the gun up straight, I take the lock off, and I aim at the corn waving and separating in front of me.
“Blanche!” he calls out again.
I close my eyes, hold my breath, and shoot.
The weight of the shot zaps me backward. The power nearly throws me off my feet, but something catches me. Two arms hold me tight while hands wrestle the gun from my trembling fingers.
“Blanche! Jesus Christ! What the hell are you doing?”
“Let me go! Let me go!”
“No! Not until you drop the damned gun. Are you fucking crazy!?” Diesel shouts in my ear as he tries to spin my arms up and over my head.
Too bad for him, I’ve taken several self-defense courses through nursing school. I know the move too well, and I easily sweep him away from me.
The gun points at his chest as I cry out, “Don’t you take a step towards me, or I swear to God I’ll pull this trigger.”
“Do you even know how to use that thing?”
“I used it a second ago. I don’t think it’s that hard to pull a trigger!”
Tears stream down my cheeks as I try to remind myself of the murderer standing next to me. If he could do that to Tyler, he could easily break me without any remorse. That’s what he’s here for after all. He’s another fucking murderer and conman like the rest of that goddamned club.
“It’s not that easy to take a life, Blanche. Don’t you do anything you’ll regret.”
I’ve seen people die before. I’ve watched their body fail, and their hearts stop dead in their chest. I’ve held hands of dying patients, and I’ve comforted loved ones waiting on the other side of the door. I know how easy it is to die, and I know how awful it can be. He doesn’t need to tell me about death. He’s the bringer. I’m the preventer. And he’s probably counting on me dropping this gun out of sympathy for that. But tonight, the roles are reversed. I’m not leaving here, and neither is he.
I close my eyes again and feel the weight of the trigger under my pointer finger. I remember how simple it was to pull it seconds ago, but that was at a shadow chasing after me in a field. The person is here now, standing before me. He’s a walking, talking, breathing person who has shared moments with me and protected me. We’re connected by the life inside of me. I have to protect that life at any cost.
I have to pull the trigger...
The moment of hesitation costs me. As the gun goes off, he spins, darting away with milliseconds to spare. His body knocks into mine, pushing me back down, but before I can fire again, he’s on top of me. Diesel’s hands clamp around my wrist and pull the gun away.
I look up at him, his eyes sparkling in the light of the nearly full moon. His face looks impossibly dark as if only shadows can stick to him.
“You killed him!” I yell, trying to throw myself off of him again. “How could you kill Tyler!?”
“Dammit, Blanche! Stop it! Stop struggling. I didn’t kill him. I swear to God that I didn’t kill him.”
“I heard it, Diesel! You came to kill him, and you were going to off me as well. Wasn’t that your plan?”
“Yes,” he admits through gritted teeth, “but when I saw you tonight, I knew I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t kill you.”
“So you murdered Tyler and let me go? Are you taking me back to California?”
“No! Will you listen to me?” He pants. “I’m trying to save both your lives.” He leaps off of me, kicking the gun out of reach and through the lines of corn. It disappears into the darkness. With it gone, he offers a hand out to me.
“Our lives?” My body steadies as he pushes me back onto my feet. His hands still hold tight to my arms, keeping them in place.
He moves closer to me, close enough that a rush of memories floods my brain. All those moments we had in bed… The times we spent sharing meals and talking about our lives… Our nights wrapped around one another…
“That night – the night in the kitchen where you said it all changed – you were right. It did. That night, Knux sent me a picture of a body, and he told me it was Tyler’s. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. I didn’t want to give you that pain without finding out who killed him first. And then, I found the killer. It turned out to be on Knux’s order. He lied to me and made me believe that the body was Tyler’s.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he do such a thing?”
“Money and power – why men do most things. Tyler was a stupid ass excuse to start a turf war with the club he had formed, the Red Roses, while in prison. Knux made it seem like Tyler had double-crossed the club, and then he planted his fake murder on the Roses so the Bonebags could go after their territory and money as justified revenge.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I’m here to kill Tyler. I found out Knux’s plot, and he made me take a loyalty pledge. He ordered me to come here and kill Tyler with his own gun. And he told me to take out any witnesses.”
A lump in my throat forms. “That’s me. He wants me dead too.”
“Yeah. He wants you dead.” He pauses before reaching his hand towards my face. His fingers move to my hair, brushing away a strand that has fallen out of my messy ponytail. “Then I saw you, Blanche. I watched you all day, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill you or Tyler – especially not with…”
His eyes move towards my belly, and I instinctively clutch my stomach.
His voice wavers slightly as he adds, “When you left me, I thought that was the end of it. I wasn’t meant to be a father or a boyfriend. Hell, I am only good for a few things, and being present isn’t one of them. I fucked up with you, Blanche. I made so many mistakes, and I sure as shit don�
�t deserve your forgiveness. But I can’t walk this earth knowing that I hurt you, our child, or your family.”
“What does that mean? How are you just walking away from the club?”
“I am. I made an oath to them when I was a teenager – right after my dad died fighting for his life in their name. But no more. I’m not going to be loyal to an organization that would ask me to kill the only person who has ever made me feel like a real man.”
“But… you…” I try to think of all the reasons to fight him, but every argument I have disappears as he drops to his knees before me.
“I need you to forgive me. You don’t have to take me back, but please, please forgive me. Say the words to me, and release me. Since you’ve been gone, my world has been empty and dark. Nothing has changed from before you walked into my life, but it feels like everything has.”
“Diesel, I—”
“I know I promised you once that I’d protect you. As long as you were with me, I would keep you safe. That promise never ended. I came here to get the job done, but it was the wrong task. The only reason I am here is because my work isn’t over. I need to save you and the baby. I need to get you the hell out of here before they…” His voice trails off as he struggles to finish his thought.
“‘Out of here before they’ what, Diesel? Are you saying that if you don’t kill Tyler, the Bonebags and Knux are going to come after us themselves?”
“Yes,” he whispers, his head low. “That’s why I thought that I could kill Tyler and get you out – get you somewhere safe over in Europe or Asia. I could support you two from afar, and Knux wouldn’t be able to hurt you. But now that I’m here, I know how fucking stupid that sounds.”
“Then what? What’s the alternative? We call the cops? The FBI? Is there anyone who could help us?” I ask, gulping down the sorrow of knowing that a storm is coming for me – a storm that I can’t stop if I tried.
“No. The Bonebags are one of the largest groups in the nation. The cops and FBI here may not know them by name, but I can guarantee they are in the know. They’ve got connections that reach way into these cornfields. That’s how they knew to send me back after Tyler. There are eyes everywhere that gladly take payment for information on the enemy.”
“Oh God. We’re not going to make it then, are we?” Time ticks away faster in my head. The night has suddenly become morning, and my time on Earth seems to have disappeared in the ground where I stand.
“The only thing we can do is fight.” He stands to his feet again, this time taking me into his arms. I listen to his heart as he whispers, “Our world is going to burn to the fucking ground in two days’ time, Blanche. That’s how much of a head start we have to prepare and stop Knux in his tracks for good.”
My heart sinks. “Two more days? That’s it? That’s all the time I’ve got left?”
“Stop it. Stop fucking talking like that.” His arms wrap around me like a protective sheet. “I’m here now, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Come hell, we’re going to make it out of here.”
“You promise?”
“I don’t make promises. I swear on everything I have, everything I will have, that you will make it out to raise our baby.”
“Our baby?” I sigh. Only days ago did I decide to keep the child as a single mom. Now there is an “our” and a “we”.
This isn’t perfect, by far, but his words seem to mean more than I ever thought they could. This is what I have been dreaming of since the moment I left – though I never admitted it until this moment. We’ll never be a happy, perfect family, but we’ll be family one way or another. I only have to give him the chance.
“Blanche,” he begins before lowering his long, angular face towards mine, “give me the chance to make this right. Give me the chance to make sure we have another day together.”
His lips find my cheek, then my nose, and finally my lips. I press my hands against his rock-hard chest, feeling his heartbeats. My feet lift off the ground, and he pulls me up and against him, so my legs are around his waist. Playfully, he spins me around until all I can see is a mess of gold, brown, and black shadows.
For one moment, I feel as if I could fly. Everything is right in this world, and not even Knux and his band of thugs could tear this second of peace away from me. We will be okay. Diesel will make sure that nothing harms us. I am sure of it.
That is until I hear the gunshot echoing through the field and the sound of the voice shouting Diesel’s name.
Chapter Fourteen
Diesel
She said yes. She said she would give me another chance. Her voice repeats over and over in my head as I fall fast to the ground. The pain in my arm sears through me, but there’s something else there – a feeling of intense, indescribable burning at the back of my head. The darkness blurs as I look up at the stars. I’ve never seen them shine so brightly as tonight…
“Diesel? Diesel? Can you hear me? Look at me!” Blanche pats my face gently, turning it towards her own.
I can barely make out those beautiful blue eyes and the long line of blonde hair that floats over her shoulder and cascades towards my chest. I reach up for her, wanting to feel that soft, buttery skin of hers. But she feels farther away than ever.
“Don’t close your eyes! Whatever you do, keep talking to me. Keep looking at me. You’re going to be okay. I promise. I’m going to take care of you now.”
Hmm. What a nice thought… No one has ever taken care of me before. Even when I was a little kid, I was in charge of myself. No one got me soup when I was sick or made sure to walk me home from the bus stop. I’ve always been alone. The idea of having someone like her watch over me feels… warm.
“Why did you shoot? Why did you do it, Tyler?” Her voice fades in and out, but with his name being yelled, I’m aware of the second shadowy figure hovering above me.
“Fuck, Blanche! I was trying to protect you. I thought he was trying to kill you!”
“He was promising to help us. That’s why he was here! Now, what the hell are we going to do without him?”
“What do you mean?” he asks her as he kneels beside me. “What is he protecting us from?”
“From the Bonebags! They’re coming after you. He was here to kill you on their orders, but he changed his mind when he… when he saw me tonight.”
“That doesn’t explain why he knocked me out again. The guy’s got a freaking habit of doing that.”
“Probably because you wouldn’t give him a chance. Plus, you’ve shot him twice now. I don’t think you’re the one who gets to complain right now. That mark on your head’s going to go away in a few hours.”
She turns her attention back to me. My eyes flicker as she nears me. Her hair tickles my face as she leans an ear towards my lips. “His breathing is shallow. We need to get him inside so I can look at the wound.”
“Then let’s lift him and get out of here. I hate being in the fields at night.” His shoulders shudder up and down as he stares out into the distance towards the few sources of light.
“We’re not moving him. You hit the back of his head, Tyler – moving him could kill him or seriously wound him. I need you to run back and get Dad’s golf cart. Grab the towels he uses to clean his car too. Diesel’s losing too much blood.”
There’s a moment of silence before Tyler’s voice comes back, “You know, Blanche, we could leave him right here. No one would know. We could get away, drive north to Canada or to the airport. We’ll keep Mom and Dad away until the danger’s gone.”
“Are you kidding me? What kind of coward are you? He came here to warn me and to save you. He could have just as easily done you and me in to save his skin. But he didn’t. He spared the both of us. He wants to fucking help us end this, so we don’t have to run anymore.”
“Jesus. Okay, okay.”
“The golf cart, Tyler! Now!”
I’ve never seen her like this. Her taking control of the situation is, admittedly, sexy – even for a guy in my condition.
“What are you smiling about? You just got yourself shot.”
“You. I’m smiling at you,” I manage to reply weakly. The pain in my head stops me from doing much more than that. “How bad is it? Am I going to—”
“No, don’t even say that. You’re going to be fine. I can promise you that. I just need you to lie still while I take a look at your wound. Tell me if you start to see anything or feel anything unusual.”
“Well, I got a bullet lodged in my shoulder, and I’m bleeding out the side of my damn head. I think that’s pretty unusual.”
“Shut up. Be patient for a second.”
She presses against my head, turning it away from her. A hand moves around my hairline until I feel the sharpest scratch and shooting pain. I cry out in agony, practically jumping out of my skin.
